Parents need to know that The Benchwarmers is premised on adult men behaving like angry children. The movie features repeated adolescent jokes. There's some profanity and many sexual references. An adult eats his nose boogers and a bug; bullies fart on target-boys; agoraphobic character mocked repeatedly for being pale (afraid of the sun, whiny, and fearful); joke about urine looking like "apple juice"; one boy spits when he talks (Schneider imitates, supposedly to make boy feel less strange, but mostly to prolong a feeble joke); one coach appears "gay," as if this undermines his macho behavior. The games include slapstick, hard-thwacking violence: bats hit bodies, heads, and squirrels in a tree (sending them flying apparently to their deaths); balls hit bodies, bare hands, and heads.

Families can talk about the concept of revenge: Is it possible to feel better if you make other people feel badly?

How do the Benchwarmers speak for all self-claimed nerds who feel bullied?

How does apologizing make Gus feel better than beating all the kids' teams?

The good stuff

Messages: Grown-up nerds try to avenge their childhood traumas by taunting children and beating them in baseball games; adults bully children; jokes about agoraphobic character; jokes about small people ("midget-boy," "Yoda"); puking; farting; knocking down mailboxes as "batting practice" (this ordained by Reggie Jackson).

What to watch for

Violence: Violence used in the service of sophomoric humor: holding a kid to the ground and farting in his face; baseballs hit chests, heads, crotches, and a bug (Clark eats the splatted dead bug); "ringer" stands on Gus' pitching hand and grinds it with his cleats (we see cuts and bruises on it after); rock hits a young man's crotch; several instances of "t---y twisting"; thrown baseball bats hit players/crowd members, cars, squirrels; a lawnmower runs over a dog (and cuts off fur); eggs hit players.

Sex: Pre-adolescent sexual jokes (titillation over "lesbians," pulling down pants to make baseball players trip); Richie wears a T-shirt that reads: "Everyone loves an Asian boy"; Gus gets in the shower with wife to pee: viewers hear it from offscreen and she expresses disgust; married couple is "trying to get pregnant," and she mentions her ovulation cycle several times; some concepts that might need explaining for younger viewers ("hermaphrodite," effects of steroids (they "make your peepee smaller," a blowup doll); gay jokes; when one character hears how a woman became pregnant, he squirts sunblock from a container to suggest ejaculation.

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